To identify genuine voters...CM stresses on house number, authorisation
Source: The Sangai Express / DIPR

Imphal, December 20 2019: On the last day of the ninth session of the eleventh Manipur Legislative Assembly today, Chief Minister N Biren Singh informed the House that to prevent confusion in identifying genuine voters, house number and authorization certificates issued by house owners (in case of voters staying in rented houses) should be made compulsory for a voter to be eligible for enrolment as a voter.

The leader of the House was replying to a question raised during the question hour by MLA Kh Joykisan whether a person residing outside his/her constituency can be enrolled in the said constituency as a voter.

CM stresses on house number, authorisation

In response to another question put up by MLA Surjakumar Okram in connection with details of revenue earnings of the State under GST (Goods and services Tax), the Chief Minister stated that the earnings from GST in the year 2017 ( July to December, 2017) was Rs 301 crore, Rs 695 crore in the financial year 2018-19 and Rs 468 crore from April to October 2019 .

MGST Act 2017 was amended to simplify the present return filing which will help in revenue augmentation, trade facilitation and enforcement measures and a committee of officers has been constituted at GST Council Secretariat as recommended by the GST Council, Biren said.

Replying to a question raised by Surjakumar, Information and Public Relations Minister Th Biswajit informed the House that enhancement of monthly pension for retired journalist and family pension is under process and has been sent for vetting to the Law Department as part of the administrative procedure.

The Minister assured the House that the pension amount of Rs 4000 per month would be enhanced to Rs 10,000 per month for retired journalists and Rs 5000 per month for family pensioners before the next Assembly session.

Biswajit also informed the House that during the year 2018-19, the State Government published 13 display advertisements through media amounting to Rs 93,42,755/- and in the year 2019-20, six display advertisements amounting to Rs 23,51,784 were released so far.

Out of the said amount, Rs 21,77,475 has been paid and Rs 93,17,064 is pending.

Nonetheless, the Government has been trying to clear all the pending bills, Biswajit added.

Kh Joykisan urged the Government to review all the recruitment examinations conducted by the Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) .

He then cited the quashing of the Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive Examination 2016 by the High Court of Manipur because of large scale irregularities.

It would not be right to assume that all the successful candidates indulged in corrupt practices.

On the contrary, many of them were working under the State/Central Government before they were selected as MCS and MPS officers.

Now their services have been terminated after the whole recruitment examination was quashed by the High Court, Joykisan pointed out before urging the Government to make some arrangements under which the status the successful candidates enjoyed before they were terminated can be restored.

Responding to a query raised by MLA K Meghachandra on behalf of MLA Yamthong Haokip, CAF&PD Minister Karam Shyam stated that the Government has no authority to fix prices of essential commodities but it can monitor the prices.

There is a 12-member State level monitoring committee to monitor price hike and the authority concerned has been directed to activate the committee, Karam Shyam said.

He added that the price hike or inflation is not restricted to Manipur alone but is a country-wide phenomenon.